Another Filament Guide

Used to print a MendelMax with a Sells, Prusa, MendelMax, etc.

SodiumSodiumSodiumSodiumSodium BATMAAAAAAN!
Yep, here it is! The unique Batman symbol to install in all your projects, your car, even make a necklace or whatever you want! Your imagination is the limit.

This has been made in OpenSCAD and printed by "MADRE", a 3D printer, in the Carlos III University.

Same as thingiverse.com/thing:14742 but for aluminum extrusion, like the MendleMax.

Examples for the ImplicitCAD 0.0.1 Release. Look at the *.escad source files to see the exciting features of ImplcitCAd's Extended OpenSCAD format.

See the README:
github.com/colah/ImplicitCAD

See the Release Notes:
christopherolah.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/implicitcad-0-0-1-release/

for 8020 15 S but adjustable.

I designed this to be able to use my Dremel tool & extension shaft as a small cutoff saw. It can cut about 1/4" (6mm) diameter stock in a single cut, or 1/2" (13mm) by turning the stock.
Requires an extension shaft with a 1/2" diameter handpiece; unfortunately, a lot of the extension shafts currently available have contoured handpieces and won't work.
ZIP file contains source files from Solidworks 2011.

A leaf spring frame.
Maybe useful for a 4x4 model

This is just a simple design that can be used for a number of things. Most commonly the commercial equivalent of this is used to blow air or liquid over tools on CNC machines, drill presses, etc. I am thinking of using it as an articulated arm to hold camera flashes off-camera and run wires through the center. Anything is possible.

Feel free to post up modifications, as this is tweaked to the fraction of a millimeter for my specific machine to be exactly as tight as I wanted them to be.

Note: I break a few here and there when putting them together. This is to be expected, and possibly thickening up the "neck" would fix this. I print 3 x 2 using multiply so this isn't a huge deal to break one every now and then.

EDIT: I uploaded all three resolutions. The highest is what made the links in the picture, but you may have similar luck with the other two resolutions. Thanks!

I made this model of the standard 2 liter soda bottle so that we can subtract is form lovely objects and give them the proper threads.
I changed the Thread Library a little bit to make this specific model print well upside down or right-side up.

One last thing. I found a measured drawing of the threads here: threadspecs.com/assets/Threadspecs/ISBT-PCO-1881-Finish-3784253-18.pdf

The mk7 is a marvel of simplicity but I'm still partial to ball bearing idler extruders.
I just don't love having that delrin plunger dragging on the filament and I like to be able to quickly release the tension so that you can pull the filament out and replace it easily without having to run the stepper.

Set of planetary gears and arms to hold the planet gears in place.

Based off OpenSCAD code from thing:7390 (after cutting out significant portions of it - because the original thing is much more than a toy).

The gear ratios are very interesting, and (at least at first) non-intuitive, depending on the part that is held stationary.

With a fixed Annulus or Sun, this gives 1:6.
With a fixed Planet carrier, this gives 1:5.

Storage cabinets are great for organizing small parts. Unfortunately the one I recently bought from Lowes didn't come with drawer dividers, so I fired up OpenSCAD and made my own.

The script is fully parameterized so you can customize it to fit whatever drawers are out there. The default values fit the smaller drawers on a Shop Stack-On 39-Drawer Storage Cabinet ( lowes.com/pd_124553-941-DSB-39_ )

For updates, check out the code on github: github.com/jherrm/Drawer-Divider

For more info, see this post: jherrman.com/2012/02/3d-printed-drawer-dividers/

Paste extruder based on the Moineau pump principle.

The pump geometry is based on thingiverse.com/thing:7958

Should work as a plug-in replacement for a hot plastic extruder in a 3D printer. However, I have NOT used this to actually print anything. I'm just publishing it in case someone else wants to try it out. (I think it's ready for printing a very small pizza without toppings, but beyond that I cannot say.)

Almost everything is parametrized and adjustable from the SCAD file. However, the resulting design should be evaluated to see if it is still sane after adjustment, since not all of the features are automatically calculated. Particularly the flange and driveshaft diameters must be adjusted by hand to match the other measurements.

See it in action: youtu.be/OHQiKuQvuEU

Note: obviously it is impossible to build an object from material that flows on it's own - the object would not hold it's shape. So in practice the material has to either be pulled into the extruder by a negative pressure (impossible with PLA printed pump parts) or pushed into the extruder by a positive pressure. In either case the motor axle has to be sealed, or it would either relieve the negative pressure or allow the material to flow up and out from the inlet block.

Have you ever wanted to turn a CD-ROM motor into a winch? I decided to see how much gear reduction could be fit into a small space, so I came up with this differential planetary arrangement. This is a well-known design, but now you can use the parameterized OpenSCAD version to customize this to your needs and include it in your mechanical designs.

The version shown here is less than 60mm in diameter and 13mm thick, but achieves a 1:246 gear reduction, all with teeth printed on a TOM. The input is the small shaft to the sun gear, the output is the smaller ring gear, and the larger ring gear is to be held fixed. If you stacked two of these units you would have a ratio of 1:60516!

I decided to revive the venerable iris box by redesigning it in OpenSCAD and making it printable with fewer parts and less assembly. It's also somewhat larger (though now the dimensions are easily adjustable with OpenSCAD), the tracks are redesigned to give more rigidity when closed, and it now opens and closes according to righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. The ring is also aesthetically redesigned and the base interior tapers down the wall thickness to give a little more internal volume.

While playing with my Moon Rover tread, I found it zipped into itself pretty well. This is an adjusted version that can zip into both sides. It's flexible in several dimensions and easily layered. It's quite fun, and I'm curious what uses or interesting shapes you all can come up with for it.

My girlfriend challenged me to make a hand soap dispenser that is cooler than anything we could buy at Crate & Barrel (or similar stores). The result, after a number of design iterations, is this bottle which now inhabits our bathroom.

This dispenser is designed to reduce waste in a number of ways. First, it is easily refillable, and so can be used for many years. Second, as the pump is turned, liquid soap spills from the spout back into a hole in the bottle, thus recycling any drips. Third, this design makes it easy to get as much or as little soap as you want, while commercial soap pumps often dispense more soap than necessary with a single squeeze.

Eastern is coming and I'll be visited by dear friends and their children.
So I need some Easter attraction for them :)

The SphereBot can plot images on spherical objects like table tennis balls, golf balls, eggs etc.
It is inspired by the original EggBot by EvilMadScientist, but built from 2 old stepper motors and some steel rods (all cannibalized from old flatbed scanners), some MDF and plywood and a few 3d printed parts (printed with my MakerBot Cupcake).

The electronics are simply an Arduino and two Polulu A4983 stepper motor drivers (on the bread board).

The custom Arduino firmware directly interprets GCode sent over the serial port. So it’s no problem to print GCode from MakerBot Unicorn designs directly on the SphereBot.
Thanks to the excellent Inkscape plugin from Marty McGuire (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5986), it’s easily possible to convert all kinds of vector drawings (eps, svg, etc) to printable GCode.

The firmware is open source and can be found here:
pleasantsoftware.com/developer/3d/spherebot/

A video of the SphereBot in action is available on YouTube:
youtube.com/watch?v=v8KnW9AQ10E

[Update 04/09/2011]
Meanwhile I drew plans for the wooden parts (left & right side and the X-axis stepper motor retainer plate). See
SphereBotWoodenParts.pdf below.

[Update 04/10/2011]
I just uploaded STL and SCad files for the printed parts.

[Update 04/11/2011]
The SphereBotSender GUI is now also available in a Processing implementation, i.e. it runs on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
See 'SphereBotSenderBinaries.zip' below.

The Sources are available on GitHub,
see pleasantsoftware.com/developer/3d/spherebot/ for the links.

Hi,

this is a complete printable eggbot
it is also work in progress (for now) but submitting it next week seems a little bit silly to me.

for now, the egg mountings are still to be designed (maybe we can 'borrow' them from somewhere).

!! AND SOMEONE DID, see hbs's page thingiverse.com/thing:13960 for those things, Thanks.

new pen holder (PenHolder-7.stl)

I really like the design of a top mounted spool that rides on bearings, such as my Prusa-Top Spool Mount thingiverse.com/thing:16046 which was adapted from the MendelMax Spool Mount thingiverse.com/thing:13329 But after finishing my first spool, I faced a dilemna. Either:
1. Continue to buy a new spool for every new filament batch, or
2. Re-wind my empty spools with fresh filament.

Buying a new spool every time not only costs extra, but I felt it would be quite wasteful, and BEING WASTEFUL IS FOR JERKS!

Then I tried to re-wind a spool by hand. That turned into a tangled, frustrating mess very fast. I quickly realized that WINDING SPOOLS IS FOR CHUMPS!

Being neither chump nor jerk, I devised a third option: a spool with a removable face, so that a coil of fresh filament could just be loaded on, and then reassembled. The printed parts along with some nuts and threaded rod help hold the split spool together.

Parametric python scripts included for use with FreeCAD.

Updated with a symmetric 3 "spoke" design to avoid pinching spool on one side. After testing this, the parallel-ness of my spool faces was improved and I decided to remove the old models with only one "spoke".

Some users have found that the rafts generated by common toolpath generators are wasteful of material and difficult to remove. cptnAWESOME found that it is easier to add raft-like features to .stl files prior to passing them to a toolpath generator, as in thingiverse.com/thing:16596.

This script performs this function automatically and uniformly, so that designers can distribute files in a form that is as machine- and technology-independent as possible. The user can then apply whatever preprocesseing steps are necessary to ensure the best print characteristics on her machine.

I created these boxes to store the pieces and cards for Vlaada Chvátil's excellent board game called Space Alert.

The boxes are sized for this particular game but I included the parametric openscad files as well so that you can easily mod them for any other purpose.

This thing will create a range of metric and imperial tooth profile pulleys, with any number of teeth, specified in the Openscad file.
Tooth profiles currently supported are MXL, 40DP, XL, H, T2.5, T5, T10, AT5, HTD (3mm, 5mm, 8mm) and GT2 (2mm, 3mm 5mm).
There are a range of editable parameters for editing the fit of the tooth (to account for printer variation), the pulley base, captive nut(s) slot for the set screw, motor shaft diameter, pulley height and belt retainers.
The attached stls are reference pulleys, mostly around the size used on repraps.

Details
After creating the parametric pulley thingiverse.com/thing:11256 I realised this way of modelling them was only going to work for square-toothed pulleys, and a way of producing pulleys for belts with better characteristics for linear motion was required. I found dxf drawings of the relevant tooth profiles here oem.cadregister.com/asp/PPOW_Entry.asp?company=915217&elementID=07807803/METRIC/URETH/WV0025/F and modelled pulley diameter from data here sdp-si.com/D265/HTML/D265T016.html
There were a couple of possible approaches to importing the data, I chose to simplify the bezier curve dxf data in Inkscape, producing vertices with a resolution of around 0.05-0.1mm for each tooth. Another advantage is the the pulleys have the tooth ramp for smooth entry and exit of the belt tooth into the pulley. I'm not really sure 3D printers can take full advantage of this yet, but quality is improving all the time!
If other tooth profiles are required, or you model any, please pass them on to me and I will include them.
Not printed yet... I'm away for the weekend! I'll upload some photos when I do, on Monday.

I got a little carried away making a winder for my new earphones.

This is a slightly more challenging variant of Dovetail Triangle that only opens when held in a certain orientation.

Watch the video for a demonstration:

youtube.com/watch?v=JnMRREjfPyc

My MakerBot's musical tones often set digital mood for each of my lan parties. It furiously pumps out prototypes of whatever models we throw at it between matches. Then we thought why not bring our game to life?

Nothing good ever comes from caffeine induced delusions during 4:00AM LAN parties. Well that never stopped us before. So this is the first step in creating a fully motorized robot.

I introduce to you, the Exoskeleton Crystal Harvester.

The next iteration will have drive motors and Bluetooth communication.

This is a pasta dryer, inspired from ones you can buy. But this one is printable!

This guide is for Windows Users.

I am growing to love OpenSCAD as a creative tool for 3D design but I do find that it's text editor lacks many of the basic features that I appreciate when writing code... Namely:

Auto-Completion
Syntax Highlighting
Collapsible Outline levels
Line Numbering
Automatic Tabbing
Search and Replace
Block Tabbing using the tab key.

I was pleased to discover however that you don't need to put up with the standard text editor. There is a feature that allows you to conveniently use the text editor of your choice with OpenSCAD. My editor of choice is Notepad++ a fast well featured open source text editor. You can download it from notepad-plus-plus.org/

Notepad++ supports many different programming languages but not unfortunately OpenSCAD. It does however have the facility that allows you to create your own language file which I have included here.

This is definitely a work in progress as I have had to make a few compromises due to the limitations of Notepad++'s language editor. I dare say other more experienced coders opinions will differ as to how best to syntax code the OpenSCAD language.

I am currently working on adding auto-complete functionality to notepad++ as we speak. I have included a working though not complete file called openscad_removethisbitandcopy.xml. Currently most if not all functions will auto-complete, what is going to take me longer is adding call-tips to all the functions which would be nice though is not critical.

FOBO is an autonomous, statically balanced walking robot. Yes, this one actually walks under its own power! It is the fourth prototype from Project Biped (http://www.projectbiped.com).


A full overview (with source Blender files) can be found at the Project Biped FOBO website:

projectbiped.com/prototypes/fobo

walking info:
projectbiped.com/prototypes/fobo/walking-cycle

more pictures of the actual robot:
projectbiped.com/prototypes/fobo/photos

FOBO avoiding obstacles:
projectbiped.com/prototypes/fobo/navigation

Controlling FOBO with a Kinect:
projectbiped.com/prototypes/fobo/kinect